


Burn

by liarlagoon



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Alternate Universe - Human, CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60 Has a Different Name, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Sort Of, Violence against Children, it's Orion, its pre-hogwarts au, oh oh oh it's magic, uhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 10:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19129978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liarlagoon/pseuds/liarlagoon
Summary: Connor and Orion are twins, nine years old, living with their parents, Hank and Amanda, in New York. The elder Sterns are going out, and they have a new babysitter. The night goes... poorly, to say the least.





	Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello it's me again
> 
> I'm posting this as a one-shot right now, but I've set it up so it can keep going and I have some loose plans for when Connor and Orion are older that I hope to eventually get to writing. 
> 
> CW: brief, largely non-graphic portrayal of violence against a child  
> CW: semi-brief, non-graphic references to violence against children

Orion had been the first to discover his magic. Their parents had been gone frequently, in those days, and their regular babysitter had cancelled last minute, sick with the flu. Neither Connor nor Orion liked the new man who came, Zachary Andrews, and they told their mother so, but she had just kissed their heads and said, "It's only for one night. Remember, bedtime is at nine thirty, and we'll be back by eleven."

"And-"

"And we'll wake you up to say goodnight."

The boys sulked, but they both held their arms out for hugs.

"Ready to go, Amanda?" their father called, pulling a suit jacket on over his shoulders as he entered the living room.

"Daddy!" Connor called, running over and leaping into their father's arms. Amanda picked up Orion and carried him over while her husband swung Connor up through the air and settled him on his hip, giggling all the way.

"Just saying goodbye to the boys, Hank. Did you set the security system?"

"Yes, ma'am," Hank said, bouncing Connor on his hip. "Did you introduce Zach to the boys?"

"Yes, he's in the kitchen going over the rule list."

Hank swung Connor in another circle and placed him back on the ground, and Amanda set Orion down next to him. "Alright, little monsters," Hank said, "let me hear your best roars!"

Connor and Orion both bared their teeth and stomped their feet, holding their arms up above their heads as they roared as loud as they could.

"Wow!" Zach called, stepping out of the kitchen. "Those are some impressive dinosaur noises!"

Orion spun and pinned him with the dirtiest glare his nine year old face could manage, and Connor, in his snippiest voice, corrected, " _Monster_ noises."

Something odd flickered across Zach's face, but he quickly covered it with a smile. "Okay, monster noises," he agreed, and then, turning to their parents, he said, "alright, Mr. and Mrs. S, I think I've got everything. You two have a good night."

"Bedtime at nine thirty," Amanda reminded him, "and don't let them talk you into letting them wait up for us."

"Yes, ma'am."

With that, the Sterns were out the door, and Connor and Orion were left alone with Zach.

"Okay, kiddos," he said, crouching down to be on their level, "what do you wanna do?"

\---

Despite their original misgivings, Zach was fun to be around, and the twins warmed up to him over the course of the night. Around eight thirty, he shuffled Orion off to take a bath and offered to play a game with Connor while he waited for his turn, and Connor raced off to grab the Nintendo Switch their parents had gotten them as a joint gift for their birthday. Orion was gone by the time he got back, and Zach was fiddling with the ring on his right hand.

"I'm _really_ good at Mario Kart, so don't feel bad if you lose," Connor said, plopping down next to him and switching on the console. Zach hummed disinterestedly and shifted to face Connor.

"How about we play something more fun? I have an idea I know you'll love."

Connor hesitated, frowning, but eventually set the game on the ground beside him. "Okay. What do you want to play?"

"It's a big kid game," Zach said, "and the objective is to be as loud as you can. I know you'll be good at it, because you and Orion yelled really loud for your parents before they left."

He grabbed Connor's shoulder and shoved him down onto the carpet, splaying a hand across his back to hold him there.

Connor squirmed uncomfortably, trying to wiggle away. "I don't think I like this game."

Zach hummed dismissively. "It's called Ring Burn," he said, pressing down harder when Connor tried to knock his arm away. "Remember, Connor, scream as loud as you can."

Something hot touched the back of Connor's neck, and he screamed.

\---

Orion had only just finished filling the bath with bubbles and was about to strip off his clothes to climb in when he heard the noise. His brother's voice resonated in his bones and he moved without thinking, bolting towards the noise. He crashed through the door to the playroom and found Zach leaning over his brother, his right hand curled into a fist and pressing into Connor's neck. Connor was thrashing uselessly, tears streaming down his face. Zach picked up his fist, and Orion could see a line of burn marks in the same shape as the glowing ring on Zach's hand across the back of Connor's neck for just a moment before he pressed the ring to Connor's cheekbone, just under his eye.

Orion and Connor sometimes watched Hank's cop shows with him, when they weren't too violent, so he yelled what the police always said when they caught someone doing something bad: " _FREEZE_!"

Zachary Andrews did exactly that. Ice bloomed from the carpet below him and encased his body, and a moment later, he was nothing but a statue, the beginnings of surprise painted across his face.

Orion spared him no further thought, dashing across the room to Connor and yanking him away from the frozen babysitter. "Connor! Connie, it's okay, he can't get you anymore."

Connor buried his face in Orion's shoulder, great, heaving sobs wracking through his frame. "It hu-hu-hurts, 'Rion."

"Okay," Orion said uncertainly, "Let's go get some peas. Daddy always makes us put peas on our hands when we burn them, right? Come on."

Connor nodded and let Orion pull him to his feet, shuffling after him to the kitchen. They got peas out of the freezer and laid them across Connor's neck, and then carrots for his face, because there was only one bag of peas, and when Orion started to panic about not having enough, Connor reasoned through stuttering breaths and slowing tears, "I think it just h-has to be v-vegetables."

When the worst of the burning had faded, Connor and Orion dragged one of the kitchen chairs up the stairs and wedged it under the door handle to the playroom, just in case Zach got out of the ice. That done, they exchanged the peas and carrots - which had started to drip cold water down the back of Connor's shirt - for green beans and brussels sprouts and settled on the couch. Connor picked out a TV show on Netflix, and Orion left and came back with a pile of blankets as big as he could carry. They cocooned themselves on the couch and waited for their parents to come home. Halfway through the third episode of singing vegetables, the real vegetables fell from Connor's grip, and Orion looked down to see his brother sound asleep. He tossed the dripping packets on the floor and curled up around him, pulling the blankets up to their noses.

When their parents finally arrived home, Connor was still sound asleep, and another six episodes of Connor's show had played. Orion had dozed off during the fourth of those, but he jerked awake with the sound of a key turning in the front door.

"Mommy?"

Amanda walked into the living room with a mild frown on her face, which morphed into confusion when Orion leapt off the couch and flung himself into her arms. "Why are you still awake, baby? I told Zach not to let you wait up."

"We locked Zach in the playroom," Orion mumbled into her shirt.

"You _what_?"

"Mommy?" Connor mumbled, shifting on the couch and blearily rubbing at his eyes.

"Just a second, baby. Hank," Amanda called back into the entryway, where he still stood, straightening their coats on the rack, "will you please go let Zach out of the playroom?"

"No!" Connor shouted, lurching upright and stumbling towards Hank. "No, Daddy, don't let him out!" He tripped, blankets tangled around his legs, and his father caught him, supporting his weight with one arm and untangling him with the other.

"Woah, buddy, calm down. What's going - "

He cut himself off when he'd finished removing the blankets and got a proper look at Connor. "What happened to your face, Con?" he asked, so softly that Amanda could barely hear it.

Orion's voice trembled, his composure slipping now that there were adults there who could take responsibility. "We told you that we didn't like Zach."

Amanda gently extricated herself from Orion's hold and moved closer to Connor to see what her husband was talking about. When she saw the back of his neck, her face paled.

"Hank," she said, voice deliberately calm and eyes fixed on the triangular burn marks in the shape of a "Z" on her son's skin, "call Chris and tell him we need a team of Aurors."

\---

At age sixteen, Connor and Orion would find out that Zachary Andrews, twenty-two and majoring in early childhood development, never existed. His real name was Zlatko Andronikov, thirty-six at the time they encountered him and a wanted man, and at twenty-two he had begun researching methods of identifying wizarding children of non-magical families before their magic presented, so as to head off any endangerment of the Statute of Secrecy. He was a successful and promising talent of the wizarding community, until he was asked to present his research methods to an oversight committee. He refused, and as a result he faded into obscurity until a new and enterprising auror, Cole Anders, had thought to cross-reference magical and non-magical case files, inspired by his brother, Hank, a newly-minted detective in the local police force.

Cole discovered a pattern of abductions: one wizarding child and one non-wizarding child, always in different areas but on the same day, and with the same signature. Separate, the cases were unsolvable, no magical evidence at the abduction sites of the wizarding children and no non-magical evidence at the sites of the non-wizarding children, but together, they were enough to give him a theory. He asked Hank to keep an eye out for similar abduction cases, and on the next one, he visited the abduction site after the police had left and found enough lingering magic there to get a trace. He followed it to Andronikov's lab and presented his findings to his supervisor, who gave him permission to search the premises.

A combined twenty-four wizarding and non-wizarding children had gone missing over the course of three years, two every three months, and ten of them were still alive when Cole found them, though two of them were only just barely so and had to be rushed to a hospital. Andronikov was arrested, and Cole met a magical crimes reporter named Veronica, who invited him to dinner to talk about his "innovative investigation technique".

They married six months later, and ten months after that, Veronica gave birth to twin boys, Connor and Orion. When the boys were two months old, Veronica published an exposé on the Andronikov trial, which had just come to a conclusion and resulted in Zlatko Andronikov being sentenced to Azkaban. At bottom of the page, on a tiny, unobtrusive banner in tiny, unobtrusive text, was an announcement: "One year ago, Veronica Keller was married to the auror mentioned in this article, Cole Anders. This week, as the case that brought them together has finally come to a close and she writes her last article for this paper, you will see her name on the byline has been changed to Veronica Anders. Look for her in the editor's section starting next week."

One week later, Zlatko Andronikov escaped during transport to Azkaban.

Two days after that, Cole and Veronica Anders were found dead in their home.

That same day, Hank and Amanda Anders took custody of twins, two and a half months old, orphaned in the night.

Two weeks of peace, before the first body appeared: a girl, seven years old and from a non-magical family, suspended in the air at the front entrance to the Ministry of Magic's west coast field office with a witch's hat on her head, burn marks on her neck and face, and a note in her hand: _Can you find them before I do?_

By the time the twins turned six months, their adoptive parents had changed their surname to Stern, obscured the paper trail as best they could, and moved from sunny, rural California to snowy, densely populated New York.

Connor and Orion, age nine, however, only knew him as Zachary Andrews, the worst babysitter to ever exist. They didn't know that the solemn looks the adults traded over their heads meant that when they had opened the door to the playroom there was nothing but a small wet spot on the carpet, and there was no trace of him to follow. They didn't know that Amanda was lying when she said the next month that the reason they were moving to Detroit was because she and Hank's jobs were both transferring them out of state. They didn't know that death had passed them by so closely that she had left her symbol on their souls where she touched them, spared only by the incredible luck of Orion's magic manifesting two years early.

What they _did_ know, however, and what was certainly most important to two nine year old boys with no real understanding of murder or revenge, was that they had magic, and a lot of it. It ran through their blood and dripped from their fingers like water from an endless fountain, so much that it was impossible to contain, so their father's friend, an auror by the name of Chris Miller, taught them to control it, in exchange for unlimited babysitting of his son, Luther.

On their eleventh birthday, Connor and Orion Stern apparated into the Miller's living room, wearing nearly identical smiles and holding nearly identical letters. "We got them!" they cheered as one, jumping up and down with excitement.

_Congratulations on your admittance to the Northeastern American chapter of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_ , the letters said. _We look forward to meeting you._

**Author's Note:**

> Like DBH? Fun AU's? How about so many prompts and so much encouragement that you break your promise to yourself and start a second project when you said you'd focus on the first one? Hit us up in the [New ERA](https://discord.gg/YHU2F4v).


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